


Wheel of Fortune (X): The Apprentice's Tale

by orphan_account



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Backstory, Falling In Love, Falling Out of Love, Female Apprentice (The Arcana), Here There Be Spoilers, Multi, Nonbinary Asra (The Arcana), POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 05:56:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20077264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Nine years ago, two magicians had a chance encounter at a masquerade; three years ago, one magician lost her life to a plague, leaving the other to resort to any means possible to resurrect her. This is the story of everything that happened in between — everyday magic, adventure in a city full of ancient history, trips to a mystical cave, and ultimately, an ill-fated apprenticeship.





	1. 0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aurora attends a masquerade ball, and encounters a stranger interested in telling her fortune.

Vesuvian citizens crowded in the palace hallways, making their way towards the ballroom as if swept along by a current. Overhead, twinkling lights obscured by draperies of sheer purple fabric brightened the way, turning the mass of partygoers into a sparkling sea wave as they reflected in the jewels and fineries of masquerade costumes. It was difficult to see much detail in their glittering silhouettes; I’d had to give up my glasses in order to wear the mask Aunt Sibyl had gifted me that morning. _To match your ocean eyes_, she’d told me, and she wasn’t incorrect. It was like I was wearing waves on my face, crested with glitter and embossed with pretty little shells.

Some part of me always belonged to the sea. I’d known it since the day I came to Vesuvia to live with Aunt Sibyl, sailing south alone at age ten, unafraid. Since arriving, I’d not left land again, but that didn’t mean I didn’t stray down to the beach every chance I got. That didn’t mean I didn’t dream of leaving everything behind just to sail again.

“You’re away again,” Sibyl’s voice broke through my reverie and drew my gaze back to her. Dark curls streaked with silver were piled on top of her head and she regarded me curiously from behind her own mask, brown eyes turned warm from the complimenting greens and golds. “One day, you’ll have to take me with you, wherever it is you go.”

“It’s nowhere you can’t go on your own, auntie.” I let her take hold of my arm in an effort to keep me grounded.

I knew she’d be sad if I ever left Vesuvia, and I also knew she would never come with me. She claimed she could never imagine herself anywhere but the city she loved. It was very far from the rest of our family, however, and she’d been alone -- and lonely -- before I came. There wasn’t much family left anywhere else now. If I was gone, she’d have no one again. Maybe that was why I stayed.

Emerging into the ballroom, I was overtaken for a moment by everything around me. Perfume and the aromas of food laid out on a banquet table filled my nostrils, while chattering and music filled my ears. Everything was a sea of color and movement, blending and shifting together while people danced. On a raised platform on the far end of the room, the Count and Countess sat enthroned, resplendent. There was something else, too, something thrumming just underneath the liveliness. I could feel the reverberations in my chest.

It was magic, I knew it as surely as I knew that the sun would rise again tomorrow. Sibyl emenated the same kind of aura, although not this strongly. Someone here was gifted, and I was determined to find out who, especially since the energy felt vaguely… familiar. I may not have spent time with its source before, but I’d definitely been in close proximity to them at least once.

I reached out with my own magic, searching, and followed where it guided me. I pulled my arm free from Sibyl but she let me go without protest. I nudged my way as politely as I could through the crowd, standing on my toes occasionally in an effort to see over shoulders and heads, turning this way and that the closer I got to be sure that I wasn’t somehow missing them. In retrospect, keeping my head forward would have been the smart decision when approaching the magical source. Instead, when I bumped into it, I did so backwards, knocking shoulders with the stranger and only realizing it was exactly who I was looking for as we both turned to face one another, apologies interrupting one another awkwardly.

He was handsome. It was the first thing I noticed. Snowy white hair offset against tanned skin, violet eyes both soft and piercing sweeping over my face. I felt my cheeks flood with color immediately and by the smile he offered me, I was sure he’d noticed it too. He was already removing his fox mask and reaching a hand to my shoulder, to be sure I was steady on my feet after our collision.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yes,” I managed, trying to ignore the feeling his touch gave me; like I’d been unexpectedly dunked into the sea on a winter’s morning. His magic mingled with mine. He must have felt it. The reaction was too strong to be overlooked. “Have we met before?”

“Not in an official capacity. I’m Asra.” He offered his hand, and when I went to shake it, he caught me by surprise and instead lifted mine to press his lips to my knuckles. “I tell fortunes in the street, often behind your aunt’s shop when she’s kind enough to allow it.”

That explained the familiarity. I spent a lot of time at Sibyl’s shop, maybe even more than she did. There was always magical impressions lingering there, too many overlapping in too many places for me to make sense of all of them. I knew she allowed a fortune teller to practice in the alleyway behind the shop, but I’d never ventured out to see them, considering I could read my own fortune.

“I’m Aurora.” I expected he already knew, but it was polite. “It’s nice to meet you, Asra. You don’t look completely comfortable, though.”

“I’ve never cared much for crowds,” he admitted. “But when everyone in the city is attending…”

“How many of their fortunes have you told?” Curiosity was burning inside me. Sibyl insisted that was an advantage I possessed, endless curiosity; others insisted it was a flaw, that I asked too many questions, wanted too many answers. I liked knowing, almost as much as I found not knowing to be intriguing.

“Ah.” He considered for a moment, turning to cast his gaze out over the crowd. He looked back at me after making a full sweep of the ballroom. “At a conservative estimate, perhaps a hundred of them.”

I didn’t _need_ him to read mine. I’d never even wanted him to before. But that had been before I’d actually met him, spoken to him, seen the glimmer in his eyes. He showed promise. I couldn’t be sure just how powerful of a magician he was, but I knew he _was_ powerful. All of a sudden, I wished I’d ventured into the alley just once to let him cast his gaze into places I thought I’d seen before. A pair of fresh eyes never hurt.

“What do you see in mine?” I prompted finally. If he was making any sort of shocked expression beneath his mask, I couldn’t see it.

His hand reached for his back pocket, only to seemingly realize that whatever he was looking for hadn’t been brought with him tonight. It moved again then, and stretched out towards me. His eyes fell on my hand, and I brought it up to his. He took me by the wrist. A thrill rushed up my arm and to my head when his fingers made contact with my skin. Asra leaned forward then, intently studying my palm, tracing the lines and patterns with his gaze and with the fingers of his other hand. His touch was feather light. The thrill came again, stronger.

I dropped my cerulean eyes down to my palm too, then, and the world around me changed. It could only have lasted for half a heartbeat, but it felt much longer. The glittering chandeliers suspended overhead dimmed, and the candles burning between the crystals changed hue, from flickering oranges to pure reds. The people around me were dancing slower, and slower still. Their forms were overtaken by shadow, one at a time, vanishing into the air until no more than a third of the attendees remained, still dancing as though nothing had happened. I felt myself tugged to look up then, and for just a moment, I was sure I’d locked eyes with the Count.

Asra released my wrist and my attention snapped back to him. Everything had returned to normal. I risked glancing back towards the Count’s throne, but he wasn’t looking anywhere close to me. I found that relieving. The magician seemed to understand that we’d both seen something, but I wasn’t sure we’d seen the same thing, even though he looked as confused as I felt.

“You’re marked for tragedy, I’m afraid,” he began, hesitantly. “There are dark times ahead. But I believe that with courage, and a little luck, you’ll light your way through.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about the dimming, reddening lights, and the disappearing dancers… and Count Lucio. He had something to do with whatever direction my life was going to take. I think Asra sensed the uneasiness I was feeling, because his hand found my shoulder. His touch was strangely grounding.

“I believe you’ll be alright.” His lips curved into a soft smile.

It was a magician’s smile; the kind that’s encouraging and sympathetic, with the slightest hint that they knew more than they were letting on. I couldn’t help but return the smile. Something about him put me at ease. I felt like I could trust him.

“Aurora!” Sibyl’s voice broke through the crowd before I could respond, and he was already removing his hand from my shoulder. I wanted to linger there, talk more, maybe try and get a read on him and _his_ future, but my aunt was already on the hunt for me and I didn’t need her to cause any trouble trying to find me.

“Thank you,” I told Asra. “Next time you find yourself outside the shop… you should come in. I think you and I have a lot to talk about.”


	2. I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aurora and Asra swap fortunes at Aunt Sibyl's magic shop.

As much as I longed to see the world, my aunt’s shop was the place that I loved best.

The heavy wooden door clattered shut as I entered, and sunlight poured in from the window over my shoulder, silhouetting me against the rugs covering the wood floor. It smelled thickly of incense, herbs, candle wax, and paper. To me, that was the scent of home. I’d officially spent more of my life there than I had back in Meles. I couldn’t remember much beyond the brick cities and thick forests, but I knew every stone in the walls of the shop. I’d be able to navigate around the counter, through the drawers and shelves, and into the back room blind if I had to. As I moved to set my basket on the glass case on top of the wooden counter, I lifted one hand as high as I could over my head, knowing just how far I needed to stretch for my fingers to brush the sheer lilac fabric hanging from the ceiling, draped about the lanterns. Sibyl loved to create a dramatic sense of the mystical.

My attention fell on the jumble of drawers that seemed haphazardly attached to the wall. There wasn’t much of an organizational system within them. I’d tried to establish one, but Sibyl absolutely refused to stick to it, no matter what I did. When I went to open the drawer on the bottom left, where I typically kept herbs tied in bundles, I found three rabbit’s feet charms, the largest feather I’d ever seen in my life, and six of the fifteen bundles I had been hoping to find. There was no use in moving the objects that didn’t technically belong, as they’d be moved at least four times before the day was finished anyways, so as I tied bundles from the herbs in my basket, I just stuffed them in whatever space was left.

“Thank you for running that errand for me,” Sibyl said, sounding a little tired as she emerged from behind the curtains obscuring the back room. Her hands were cradling a cup of tea. Her hair was knotted in a bun behind her head, and even with the silver wisps coming into it, she wouldn’t have looked her age without the wrinkles creasing around her eyes. They made her look just as tired as she sounded.

“It wasn’t any trouble.” I tucked the empty basket beneath the counter, and waved a hand over the cluster of white candles stuck by melted wax to the corner of the glass case. I imagined their black wicks bursting to life and by the time my palm passed, they were alight. “No one was carrying marshmallow root, but the baker was willing to part with pumpkin leaves.”

“Better than nothing,” my aunt observed, crossing over to put her tea down on the counter. She reached for one of three niches on the wall above the cascade of crooked drawers; the one in the middle contained an assortment of books, their spines cracked and their pages yellowed with age. She snatched one down and flipped through it for a moment before tapping at an illustration of a pumpkin. “It’s the perfect time of year for fertility spells.”

I scrunched up my nose slightly and shook my head. I’d leave her to handle the love magic, and the midwifery, come spring.

The door swung open behind us and I turned to see Asra stepping inside. He looked much more comfortable in the shop than he had in the ballroom and without his mask obscuring his features, I could see just how soft and handsome his face was. He smiled politely at my aunt and then at me. It hadn’t taken him very long to decide to return to this quarter of the city, then; the masquerade had only been a fortnight ago. I guessed he also felt we had a lot to talk about.

“Asra!” Sibyl sounded surprised to see him _in_side the shop. “I can’t imagine you of all people need my help with something.”

“I don’t,” he admitted. “But I made Aurora’s acquaintance at the masquerade, and I thought I would drop in to say hello again, if she’s not busy.”

“Not busy at all. Aurora, I don’t need the back room for anything this morning, and there’s still tea in the kettle.” She nodded at me, and I beckoned for Asra to follow as I disappeared behind the curtains.

The back room boasted little more than a stained glass window, a full length mirror propped against one wall, a tall bookshelf standing on the opposite wall, and a table wreathed in several different, colorful fabrics. My nose wasn’t assaulted nearly as much as I moved into that room. No incense burned back here, there were only two candles perched at each end of the windowsill, and the strongest aroma was that of the tea brewing beyond the open archway next to the mirror that led back into Sibyl’s living quarters. I motioned for the magician accompanying me to sit at the table and I walked through the archway, down the hall, and into the kitchen.

When I came back carrying two cups of spiced tea, I found Asra shuffling a very curious deck of cards in his hands while he sat on the plush stool my aunt usually occupied when she brought customers behind the curtains. Instead of correcting the seating arrangement, I leaned to set his tea on the table and settled across from him.

“Are we playing a card game?” I prompted.

“Perhaps of a sort,” he told me, cutting the deck into three piles on the cloth and peering up at me with mauve irises. “Turn a card over. Just one.” When I reached my hand across the table without hesitation, he caught my wrist gently and shook his head. “Not like that, not without feeling.”

To anyone else, that might have made no sense, but I understood what he meant. He wanted me to open myself up to the magic and let it guide my hand. I couldn’t begin to guess why, and I had no reason to trust him wholeheartedly yet, but I did have faith in myself and my abilities. I could pull back from anything murky. I let my eyes close and I cast out a line in my mind’s eye, shining golden ripples sweeping out across the dark void. In moments, I could feel a tug. My fingers brushed against thick cardstock and when I opened my eyes, I had already turned over a card.

A pale, winged lioness stared solemnly up at me from against a royal blue gradient. Or was she staring down at the black and white wheel bordering the bottom of the card, decorated only by a white ‘X’ in the center. If I had to hazard a guess, the cards were numbered, and this was the tenth. Beyond that, I didn’t understand what I was really looking at, and my gaze flickered back up to Asra, burning with questions unasked. Fortunately, they wouldn’t go unanswered.

“The Wheel of Fortune.” He nodded after a moment. “This is how I tell fortunes best. I created these cards myself. Each one has its own meaning. This card is part of twenty-two that I call the Major Arcana.” There was a glimmer in his eyes that told me he knew much more than he would tell me now, but I held my tongue. “What it indicates to me is that you have reached a turning point in your life’s journey. You have some kind of… destiny, Aurora. It’s approaching.”

“Destiny?” I breathed. That word held a lot of weight. I shifted uncomfortably. “You can tell that from a card?”

“They speak to me, in their own way.” He turned the Wheel back over and restacked the deck. He handled it with such care; it must have meant a lot to him.

I had to really mull over the implications of what he’d said -- he’d created the deck. Asra had hand crafted a brand new form of divination and, based on the fact that it did have a magical pull, it seemed to work. I wouldn’t know for sure until this mysterious destiny came to pass. I didn’t feel as though I’d reached a turning point. There had been no significant change that I was aware of. But I was willing to go on a little faith.

“That’s impressive.” My head tilted. “You’ve read my fortune twice now. Would you be opposed to me returning the favor?”

I couldn’t read the expression on his face. I thought his shoulders stiffened, but if they did, they relaxed too quickly for me to be sure. I had to wonder if he’d read something in his own future that he wasn’t interested in someone else knowing, and almost felt bad for the offer until he smiled and tucked his cards away.

“I’d be interested to know what you see. How would you like to proceed?” Now I could see the eagerness in his eyes.

“Wait here.” I rose from the table and stepped back into the shop.

When I returned, it was with a silver bowl and a bottle crafted from sea glass. I set the bowl in the center of the table and pulled the cork from the bottle, tipping the contents into the bowl. Asra leaned forward with keen interest. The faint smell of saltwater filled the air between us. I put the cork back in the bottle and set it aside. I felt strongest when I was closer to the sea, and much of my magic was fueled by it, even when it didn’t need to be.

“Put your hand in the water.” I watched him push his sleeve up to his elbow before he obeyed. I reached forward and placed my hand over his, fingers sliding against soft skin as I pushed both our hands all the way down to the bottom of the bowl and held them there.

I focused my gaze on the water in the bowl. I focused the rest of my senses on Asra; particularly on the physical connection of our hands. I needed to draw from that more than anything. My eyes were fluttering shut before I realized it, and the world around me faded into darkness, and then exploded into stars. I could hear ocean waves rolling onto a shore, and I could feel wind tugging at my clothes. But all I could see was twinkling pinpoints of light stretching out all around me. Someone’s hand was in mine, grounding me, and then directing me; pulling me forwards. I couldn’t see Asra, he wasn’t present here with me in this place between worlds, but our hands together were guiding me towards what I wanted.

I found myself treading into water. I stopped to crouch and gaze into it, eyes straining until the stars faded and all I could see were dark ripples that morphed into shapes. A fox wrapped in a red robe; magical symbols glowing white against someone’s skin; distant lands and unrecognizable creatures. There was a sense of strong affection, a soul-shattering sense of loss, and the resolve to do whatever it takes to… do… something. I couldn’t seem to push past that. The magician was going to suffer, he was going to lose someone or something he cared about very much, but he was going to do something about it.

I let myself fall forward into the water. My eyes blinked open and focused in the sudden light. I withdrew my hand from the bowl of water and sat back heavily. Asra dried his hand on his clothes and watched me silently, waiting.

“You’re going to lose something.” I tapped my fingers absentmindedly against the table. “Most of what I saw and felt didn’t make a lot of sense, but… I know you’re going to lose something.”

If he was distressed by that, he did a good job of hiding it. He looked pensive, at the very least.

“Thank you,” he said finally, and his eyes cleared. “That was a fascinating method of divination. Would you perhaps mind teaching me?”


End file.
